Triton (10 page)

Cedar, Sky, and Brynn wandered wide-eyed past the baby grand piano into the spacious two story living area. Now this was luxury.

Stairs climbed to the lofted master bedroom, and through the glass railings, he made out an office and a library.

Brynn flipped on the 72” flat screen, bringing up a welcome screen and a menu of shows and movies to choose from.

“Hey, we have TV again,” she said.

“Not from the satellite,” said Cedar. “That streams directly from the ship. You have to pay for it.”

“I’ll just charge it to the room,” she said, and they all laughed.

“Put on a movie,” said Sky.

Cedar and Sky stepped out onto the wraparound balcony, which looked out over the water on one side and a basketball court on the other. Half-finished drinks littered the outdoor dining area. A plate of what looked—and still smelled—like spinach and feta cheese puff pastries lay untouched at the center of the table.

“Have you seen any seagulls?” he said.

“No,” she said, leaning over the railing right next to him, their arms touching. “Why?”

Cedar hefted one of the empty cocktail glasses in his hand, then flung it off the balcony. It spun in the air, spewing liquid, cleared the basketball court and dropped through the open area in the middle of the ship. Ages later, it exploded into a shower of broken glass in the Aquatheater fifteen stories below them. “There’s supposed to be seagulls,” he said.

Behind them, Loud voices cut off their conversation—Jake and Naomi, back with a bunch of walkie-talkies, which they handed out.

“Brynn and Cedar, you guys can take the master bedroom,” said Jake. “Naomi and Sky, you take the downstairs bedroom. I’ll take the couch foldout . . .” he trailed off, and his eyes flicked to the TV. “Who the hell put on
Titanic?
”

Night fell over
the largest cruise ship in the world, transforming it into an island of lights. Brynn found herself downstairs on a couch with Naomi and Jake—who had found a guitar and was strumming it and singing in a low, soulful voice.

Though she couldn’t make out the words of his song, she didn’t need to. He already had her spellbound.

Since last night . . . since their kiss, her brain had been oddly clear; she hadn’t thought about Simon once.

The realization brought a wave of guilt, though, and she squirmed in her own skin. Where was Simon now?

No, where was
her dad?

Taken. Like the rest of the passengers. The boy she had danced with last night, the girl she had played foosball with . . .
gone
. She hoped they were alright.

Now the five of them were alone on the cruise ship. She had no idea what that meant, what to even feel about it. In fact, she still didn’t fully believe it—like it was a dream from which she would soon awake. Well, at least she still had her brother. The thought was surprisingly comforting.

She glanced around. Cedar had gone up to bed, and Sky was . . . she didn’t care where Sky was.

“So what’s going on, guys?” Jake continued to strum gently. “What are we dealing with here?”

“The North Koreans?” Brynn offered.

Naomi shook her head. “This isn’t the first time this has happened.”

They both stared at her, and Jake set the mood with an eerie chord. “Let’s hear it. I’m in the mood for a good ghost story.”

“It’s not a ghost story. The first time it happened was in eighteen eighty-four,” she said. “While sailing to New York, the
Ellen Austin
encountered another ship in the middle of the Atlantic—a ship sailing without a single person on board.”

A chill crept down the back of Brynn’s neck.

Naomi continued. “Some of the
Ellen Austin’s
crew boarded the derelict ship and attempted to sail it back to New York, but the two ships got separated in a storm. When the
Ellen Austin
found the other ship again, the crew was gone. They had vanished.”

“That’s a myth,” said Jake.

“It happened again in nineteen twenty-one,” said Naomi. “The
Carroll A. Deering
ran aground somewhere in North Carolina, completely empty. Her crew had vanished too. It’s happened before and now it’s happening again . . . to us.”

“But that’s all made up, right?” said Brynn.

“Some of the stories are,” said Naomi, “but there’s just too many of them, too many reports. And it’s always here.”

“What do you mean
here?
Where’s
here
?” said Jake.

“The Bermuda Triangle,” she said. “Last night at midnight, the
Cypress
crossed into the Bermuda Triangle.”

Cedar retreated into
the darkness of the master bedroom, reassured that their attention was focused on Naomi and her Bermuda Triangle crap. They thought he was asleep.

He opened the top drawer of the dresser and peeled back a layer of shirts, exposing the gleaming blade of the knife.

Cedar had snuck it up from the kitchen sandwiched between two food pallets—a carving knife, eight inches long.

Everyone was gone. Adults, kids, his dad . . .
gone
. And they weren’t coming back. Now he could make his own law. He reached for the hilt—

Someone knocked. He slammed the drawer shut and spun to see Sky at the top of the stairs, her fist raised against the wall.

“Get out,” he said.

Her eyes darted to the drawer, then back to him. “I need to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Want to go in the hot tub?”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“I don’t care what you feel,” she said. “Do you want to go in the hot tub with me?” She gave him an impatient, I-need-to-talk-to-you-right-now look.

So, a few minutes later, Cedar in his board shorts and Sky in a skimpy black Brazilian bikini—the only one they could find among the former occupants’ clothes—they stepped into the hot tub.

Cedar’s eyes traced her long, lightly tanned legs as she eased into the water, and he swallowed. This was getting ridiculous. “What do you want?” he said.

She studied him from across the tub, steam rising between them. “What’s the knife for?”

So she saw. Great. He told her the truth: “I’m going to kill him.”

“They’re not sleeping together.”

The gurgle of the hot tub masked their voices. “I’m still going to kill him.”

She laughed to herself. “Wow, you’re even more fucked up than I am. Never thought I’d meet someone.”

“Than
you
are?” He raised his eyebrows. “You got a dark secret locked up in that little brain of yours?”

“Can’t you tell?” she said, locking eyes with him. “Isn’t it all over my face?”

“There’s nothing on your face,” he said, the scalding Jacuzzi water beginning to make him sweat. “What do you want? Or was bringing me out here just one big tease?”

Over the balcony, the black sea rushed by in the darkness. Sky sank lower in the water. “Did you believe me earlier? About what happened to me?”

“No.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Who cares? You were taken.
Everyone
was taken.”

“What are we doing here, Cedar? Twenty-four hours ago, all eight thousand people on this ship vanished into thin air . . . but the five of us were left behind.”

Unable to bear the heat, Cedar scooted up onto the edge of the Jacuzzi, and the night breeze chilled his soaked skin. “You think there’s something that connects us?”

“I think we were attacked.”

He wiped sweat off his forehead and flung the moisture overboard. “By what?”

She just stared at him, her golden eyes gleaming behind the cryptic, gorgeous mask of her face. “All I’m saying is keep your eyes open, Cedar . . . because I think there might be something still on this ship with us.”

From the balcony
, Jake watched the ship’s wake melt into the darkness. Everyone else had gone to bed.

The curse of the Bermuda Triangle was not their answer. Those myths had all been debunked; ships and planes were no more likely to vanish in the Triangle than they were in any other heavily trafficked part of the ocean.

No, this had a logical explanation; it had to. You could explain away the disappearance of a handful of sailors and a dozen boats with a curse. But not eight thousand people.

Eight thousand people was something bigger. Something international, something political . . . militaristic. Eight thousand people was an attack.

At least, that was what Sky believed. An attack. By what—and for what reason—he couldn’t imagine.

They needed a record of the event . . . a way to know for sure. The ship’s black box maybe.

Footage. They needed footage.

Movement on the brightly lit decks below caught his eye, and the cool breeze raised goose bumps on his skin.

He scanned the sports deck, the miniature golf course, the wall of balconies descending into the ship’s interior—all empty.

Just a flickering light. That was all. Just a flickering light, Jake.

They had spent an entire day searching the ship. Sky had even announced herself over the ship’s emergency system . . . anyone else still on board would have come forward by now. They
knew
they were alone.

Just a flickering light.

Jake sighed and swiveled away from the ship’s stern. Why was he even out here, anyway? Why was he the only one who ever cared?

Because of the fire.

Now people deferred to him constantly . . . like they could smell the stink of a leader on him. Because of what he had done. As if that one split-second decision all those months ago had made him into a god.

The firefighters didn’t believe it was possible for him to save her. According to them, no one could have survived the fumes and heat long enough to climb three stories and haul out a fully grown adult.

The funny thing was he didn’t remember any of it. From the moment the flames scorched his face to the moment he laid his mother’s unconscious, smoking body on the grass afterwards, it was like he wasn’t even in his own body.

Well, whatever it was that rubbed off on him inside that inferno, it had earned him the role as leader for the other castaways, now fast asleep inside the suite—and also made him into a target for Cedar.

In retrospect, his act of bravery had ruined his life. His dad never looked him in the eye again; he couldn’t. Because in his mind,
he
should have been the brave one,
he
should have had the guts to run back inside to save his wife.
He
should have been the hero.

Not his teenage son.

Jake slipped inside and lay on the foldout bed. His walkie-talkie stood upright on the side table. On a whim, he picked it up and flipped through the other channels.

They were all silent. He set down the radio and flipped onto his side, wondering how long their batteries would last before they had to make another trip to the security office to recharge them—

The security office.

Footage.

He sat up, heart pounding. He knew where they could get all the footage they needed. First thing tomorrow morning.

The scream of
an alarm jolted Sky up in bed. It wasn’t a dream. Earsplitting shrieks echoed in the hall outside their suite. It was still dark out, still the middle of the night. She hadn’t slept one wink.

Next to her, Naomi shot out of bed and darted out of the bedroom. Sky followed her through the living area—past a wide-eyed Jake—and onto the balcony.

The siren blared louder outside, and they both clamped their ears. The stern was lit up with red and white strobe lights, blinding them with every flash.

Sky was sure of one thing. This wasn’t the General Emergency Alarm that had sounded during the lifeboat drill, after which passengers were to move calmly to their muster stations. There was nothing calm about this.

“What is it?” Sky yelled over the noise.

“I don’t know.” Naomi scanned the deck.

Jake appeared on the balcony a moment later, followed by Brynn and Cedar. “What’s the alarm for?” he asked.

“We don’t know . . . there’s nothing happening on deck.”

“Is everyone here?” Jake took a quick head count.

Naomi moved her gaze from the ship to the ocean off to the right, off the starboard side, and peered intently into the darkness, eyebrows tight with concentration.

“What are you looking for?” said Sky.

“There,” she said, raising a hand to point. “Breaking waves—”

She was cut off though. With a whoosh of air, a huge mass sailed past them—blotting out the ocean and the stars. Startled, Sky jumped back. Only a blur lingered in her vision from where something had flown not more than twenty feet beyond the balcony railing.

It looked like . . .
rock
.

Then another mass thrust to within arm’s reach and retreated, and Sky shrieked. So close she could smell it this time . . . the damp, rotten earth—a cliff.

The
Cypress
was veering into the vertical face of a cliff. Farther astern, a row of balconies grazed the cliff. The railings shattered, showering the water with a landslide of rock and broken glass.

Hundreds of feet below them, surf pounded the hull, and the entire cruise ship swayed with an agonizing groan of metal. The movement was amplified up seventeen decks, and the five of them stumbled into each other, crunched into the sliding glass doors, and then shot back against the opposite railing.

Cedar slammed into Sky from behind, and their combined inertia almost sent her over, but he caught her around the waist and dragged her away from the edge. He only let go to deposit her back inside the suite.

“Did you just save my life?” she asked.

“No, but I thought for a second I’d ended it.” He spun away from her and shouted back at the now empty balcony. “Brynn!”

“Right here,” she said, climbing to her feet next to Sky.

“Where the hell are we?” said Jake from somewhere next to her.

“Some kind of rock formation sticking out of the water,” said Naomi, the only one who had managed to remain standing. “Looks like we just missed that one.” The ship’s stern swooshed past the rocky spire, barely clearing it, and Naomi glanced forward, relieved.